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Another Attempted Smear of Planned Parenthood

Tue, 02/08/2011 - 5:23pm — Miranda

Live Action, the anti-choice group that has been attempting to smear Planned Parenthood with heavily edited videos of its activists posing as sex traffickers in Planned Parenthood offices, has released another video. And this one, according to a Planned Parenthood press release, has also been heavily altered:

In an interview with the FBI, the two health center workers featured in the video said that they did not hear the words “sex work” or “sex worker,” uttered by the actors on camera who were hired by Live Action to play the role of a “pimp” on the videotape in an effort to undermine the credibility of Planned Parenthood staff in Live Action’s coordinated lobbying effort to support legislation that would bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds.

In addition, it is clear from the edited tape that there are two or more video sources, as well as an additional audio source, increasing the opportunity for manipulation and selective editing.

Unlike other publicized tapes, the hoax “patients” in New York were not able to get beyond the reception desk for a private consultation. Like other encounters that have been recently publicized in Virginia, our staff responded professionally to questions, discussed these encounters with management, and provided a report to the FBI.

We expect Live Action, a political operation, to continue publicizing a number of secretly recorded videotapes made at our health centers in an effort to undermine health center services and support federal legislation designed to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds.

Multiplemediaorganizations have analyzed Live Action’s videos and found them to be fraudulent, and the claims that they are meant to back up misleading.

Although the mainstream media has for the most part recognized Live Action’s smear campaign as the fraud it is, Live Action isn’t giving up. Last week, a coalition of progressive groups, including People For, sent a letter to members of Congress supporting Planned Parenthood as the organization faces continued right-wing smears.

For more background, read our Right Wing Watch: In Focus report on the anatomy of Live Action’s campaign, and watch PFAW Senior Fellow Peter Montgomery's analysis on the Thom Hartmann show: